Sweet Home Alabama‘s Paige Duke Chooses Jeremiah James Korfe

Sweet Home Alabama
‘s Paige Duke has found her man. After exciting dates, big drama in the house and delivering heartbreak on the tailgate of a pickup truck, she finally revealed her choice on Friday night (March 23).

Asked about watching the season unfold on the CMT reality series, she replied, “It’s fun for my family to watch, and it’s fun for me. It takes me back to where I was at that time and the feelings I was feeling. It’s just very emotional for me, and things that brought tears on the show will bring tears again. It’s a very strange thing to watch. It’s very surreal, and I’m so thankful for it because I’ve met the love of my life on this show. But it’s a crazy way to show how I get there.”

Duke and her suitor, Jeremiah James Korfe, visited CMT.com to talk about watching themselves on TV, knowing that friends are watching and sharing their own lessons in love.

Do you think you had a good variety of quality men to choose from?

Duke: I do. I thought they were wonderful guys. Even if I wasn’t romantically attracted to them, they are wonderful people. The guys in the house became best friends. I see the same guy that they see, and they have wonderful qualities that any woman would be lucky to have. They all brought something different to the table, and none of them were jerks to me. They were all very respectful and sweet. But you can’t tell your heart what to feel. They came up with great guys, and I had all different types of guys to pick from.

Jeremiah, how was the whole process for you?

Korfe: It’s honestly such a hard thing to do because you start to like her, then you’ve got these friends. Then she tells you that she’s falling in love with you, and you don’t know if she’s telling my friends the same thing. I don’t want to open up when she’s dating my friends and my roommates.

Then I start to learn more about her vicariously through them talking about their dates in the house. It’s the most real thing that’s ever happened in an unreal situation. We are crazy in love with each other, so it was very difficult. Even now, I don’t watch the dates when they’re airing because it’s like, “That’s my friend and that’s my girlfriend. I don’t want to see that.” It’s hard to separate those emotions because that was past-tense and this is what we have now.

Do you have anything to say to those watching the show?

Duke: I just hope we’re an inspiration to people out there who are looking for love. I would’ve never expected this to happen. You hope it does, but you don’t expect it, especially in this situation. We’ve been praying hard for God to bring the right person into our lives, and this is what it took, if this is the way we were meant to meet. I want people to look at us and say, “Oh, that’s the kind of love I want, and I want to be treated the way he treats me.” It’s so wonderful.

Korfe: I feel like it wouldn’t have happened for me because I am such a closed-off person. With everything going on in my life, I wouldn’t have taken the time to actually let it all fall into place because there’s always the mind game when you’re forced into that situation. I was forced to say that if I don’t open up to her, my chance potentially could be blown. All of a sudden, it forced everything out of me, so I think that is a blessing in itself.